[XtRaVa]

England and America are very nationalist (too nationalist sometimes) and the majority of the native english speaking citizens, of these two countries in particular, would often never want to learn any language other than english. I totally agree that its a shame and to a certain extent even racist.

I find it utterly disgusting how ignorant and insular countries can be and wish I had the time/money to learn another language. It's not completely our faults though, in schools all over the world they teach other languages from very young ages (particularly english) and are pretty much compulsory for many years (and taught to a very good standard). In england (and I expect America too) its not like this. Language classes are usually optional, or practically non-existant. I wasnt taught french until I was in secondary school and it was the only mandatory foreign language class we had to take (and only lasted around 3 years and was pretty basic).

That doesnt help us at all, by the age we started it, learning languages was already much more difficult than if they started teaching it to us in first school. So to say its all our own faults isnt quite right, its more the faults of the school system/government as by the time we leave school most people work full time and dont pursue learning another language, which is so much more difficult as an adult anyway.

I will try and find the time to someday learn some languages. I would particularly like to learn German, Ducth and Japanese.